Say Hello to the Kentico Events App

If you’re ever attended a Kentico event, you know they are full of some awesome content and great connections. With so much packed into each conference, staying up to date on the sessions and details can be tough as new speakers and locations are added. With the new Kentico Events app, you’ll have access to the latest information as soon as it is released. In this article, I’ll tell you about the app features, give a glimpse into the architecture, and let you know how to get it installed on your phone.

Over the years, Kentico has put on some pretty amazing events. From historic castles in Prague to top of the world views of Chicago, our conferences and roadshows bring our partner community together with our executive and product management teams. They discuss the industry, share experiences, and connect with the minds behind Kentico products and services. Attendees get see new features, hear real-world case studies, and expand their network with other partners from around the world.

In the past, we’ve used a number of systems to manage and promote our events. We’ve hosted information within the Kentico.com site, leveraged standalone systems like EventBrite and MeetUp, and other homegrown solutions. While we’ve gotten pretty good at managing this content, there’s still a challenge to keep the information up to date and available for the community. Because getting this content to our partners is the most critical part, we wanted to make sure the information was freely available, while simplying our content management process.

Enter Kentico Cloud & Xamarin!

Android

iOS

Architecture Overview

The new Kentico Events App is a Xamarin application, powered by Kentico Cloud content. This architecture allows us to create and manage our event content quickly, and deliver using the powerful Kentico Cloud API. Because it’s built on Xamarin, we leverage a single codebase for iOS and Android, allowing us to build and manage the code easily. The app uses the current Delivery API release, along with Azure Mobile Services for backend storage. This means the entire brains of the app is 100% cloud-hosted, which offers limitless scalability and flexibility.

In a future article, I’ll give you a deep dive into the code behind the app and show how we leverage the various systems for the functionality.

App Basics

At the core, the Kentico Events App is about bringing you the latest on upcoming conferences, user groups, and Roadshows. Events are listed in chronological order, displaying the event name, start/end dates, and location.

The filter option allows you to sort the list to a specific region or date range. This helps you find events in your area quickly and easily.

Clicking an event displays the details, including a link for more information, session list, and a Feedback link if the event is active. You can view session details, and even the presenter information.

Another big feature of the app is the ability to submit feedback for events and sessions you’ve attended! This functionality allows you to quickly provide your feedback though the app in real time. This feedback is saved to an Azure Mobile Services table using the App Service API.

The app stores your entered information for faster submissions. Under Settings, you can update your contact information, as well as update the theme.

App Future

The Kentico Events app is designed to be used for all future Kentico events. Some planned enhancements include multilingual support, speaker contact details, and other goodies to make the experience as cool as possible. Because the app is built on Kentico Cloud, we can leverage multiple languages, instant deployments, and webhook support for app notifications. Be sure to keep any eye out for updates as we release them to stay up to date on the latest features.

Install

Because the app was built with Xamarin, we have an iOS and Android version. Use the links below to download the app to your phone.

In the future, we may release a UWP version, as well.

Wrapping up

We hope you love the new Kentico Events app. It will allow you stay up to date on all Kentico-related events and quickly provide feedback to help us to improve. If there’s something missing that you’d like to see, let me know in the comments and we’ll work to incorporate it in future releases. Now go get the app!

Hello. I am a Technical Evangelist here at Kentico and will be helping the technical community by providing guidance and best practices for all areas of the product. I might also do some karaoke. We'll see how the night goes...